Blood bathed forest
by BlueScarletZ
Summary: Five years have passed since Naruto defeated Toneri Otsutsuki. The world was at peace, or was it? Naruto received some disturbing news about people disappearing near the forest of yugakure and many dead bodies being found in the river beside the forest. Discussing it with Sasuke and agreeing that the mission was dangerous, Naruto decides to send him to investigate the forest.


**Blood Bathed Forest**

Chapter 1: The black castle

Darkness. That's what came to his mind when he first entered the forest. It was the perfect epitome of darkness. There were no birds, no animals, nothing. The trees themselves looked like they were dying. No not dying, they were already dead. There was an unusual aura surrounding those trees. It's as if the trees themselves were giving the final warning to all unfortunate wanderers who walked that path.

He's been walking for hours through this dark forest. He was not the type to get impatient, but the ominous aura in the forest was making him strangely uncomfortable and lonely. He couldn't help but think of what he left behind. He could still clearly remember her face. He could clearly remember the tears in her face as she said her goodbyes. For some reason he couldn't look her in the eyes. All he remembers are those tears in her face.

His train of thoughts stopped there. He couldn't afford to lose focus. Not now. His best friend just entrusted him with a task only he could handle. He couldn't let him down. If what the new Hokage predicted came to pass, then this mission very well could decide the fate of the world. So he had to be at his best.

Then suddenly he felt it. A very strange chakra spike just a kilometer ahead in the forest. He never felt chakra like this. It was ominous, almost like the chakra of Kaguya Otsutsuki, but there was something about it he just couldn't put his fingers to. But he was positive he never felt anything like this ever before in his life. "Is this why Naruto was so scared?" he couldn't but help thinking about it. "It's just around the corner," he thought.

When he arrived in the clearing, his mouth dropped and he froze in place. He gave himself a few moments to comprehend the sight he was seeing. Shocked? No, saying that he felt shocked would be an understatement. He was bewildered. Who wouldn't be if they saw the ruins of a humongous castle in the middle of a forest?

Seeing this castle, his mind wanders off to that day in the Yugakure village.

 _He was sitting alone in a pub pondering on his mission ahead. There were two other people in the pub there sitting in another table. One of them was a boy with spiky blue hair, in his late teens probably and the other person was an old man, probably in his early fifties who looked like his father. They were discussing about something in a severe tone. "I heard that there's a castle in the forest, dad. I want to go see." the boy said. "I've told you Hanate, that forest is cursed. You shouldn't go in there." "But why? I mean if I go with Yuroi, then I'm pretty sure nothing will happen to us, after all we are among the strongest shinobis in our village," Hanate said."You see Hanate, rumours has it that in that forest, a mysterious tribe of shinobis lived once. Rumors had that they made human sacrifices for their deity, the devil. But they were all wiped out once when the land of lightning attacked them. Some say that their king fled to safety to regain power. So even in this day and age, some people believe that the devil worshippers are still out there waiting for the return of their king so they can once again step into the light and bring chaos and darkness to the world. I know this is all myth, but you're my son, so I can't afford to send you there for a wild goose chase."_

"These ruins prove that the story the old guy was talking about isn't totally bull. But where is the source of this chakra," he thought."Whatever's in there, it can't be good, I better get going," he thought.

With that, he made his way to the castle. The castle was large, but in ruins. The walls were broken down and there was debris everywhere. So using his sharingan vision, he scanned the debris and as he thought, there was a door hidden beneath the rubble. He cleared the debris and entered the dilapidated castle.

The castle walls were majestic with carvings of some ritual symbols all over it. Somehow, he felt a chill go down his spine the moment he laid eyes on the walls, no not on that walls, on those strange symbols. There was definitely some meaning behind those symbols. But he knew that staring at the walls wouldn't do him any good. So, he began to scan the room. At first sight, it appeared to be an ordinary room with apparently no doors, no windows, no chairs, no tables. It was empty. But Sasuke knew it couldn't be a dead end. He'd seen too many of these types of places to know that there were always some hidden entrance. Hence using his sharingan, he looked for some hidden door and surely enough, there was an opening in the far corner of the room which was carefully concealed. So without wasting time, he went in and saw a passage beyond it which led underground.

The passage was dark, pitch dark. Without his Sharingan vision, he doubted he could've seen even a few inches in front of him. The passage, like the castle too was ancient. It was as if a few decades had passed since footsteps echoed through the walls of that passage. They also bore some of those strange symbols. After a few minutes of walking in eerie silence, he came to the end of the passage which lead to a chamber beneath the surface.

Cryptic and in ruins, those were the things that came to his mind the moment his eyes gazed up on the desolate underground chamber. Sections of ceiling hung limp in the stagnant air. Fragments of plaster lie damp ever a long untrodden floor. The chamber was devoid of any furnitures. But he noticed that there were some scrolls lying in the far end of the room immersed in cobwebs. The back wall also had some patterns and symbols which had an ominous vibe in them.

But these symbols weren't the same as the previous ones before. And there was something else this time. What looked like a painting was in the center of the floor. Out of curiosity, he went ahead to examine the picture. It depicted a man being crucified with strange symbols all over his body. But amidst the ambiguity of the drawing, Sasuke could clearly see that the man was looking at him, simpering. Somehow it made him really uneasy. Out of instinct, he touched the painting, but the moment his hand brushed against the painting, he froze in place. No there was no mistaking it. Due to his rinnegan, he could see everything like a monochrome television. But now, he knew that if he could see the colour of the painting, it would be red. Blood red to be precise. Yes, the picture was painted with pure blood. This new discovery made him disquieted. These aren't things that usually faze the Uchiha, but for some reasons they did. He could still sense faint traces of the ominous chakra from the wall, but he couldn't make anything out of it.

On the other hand, the chakra readings from the readings from the scrolls lying in the corner was relatively stronger. Hence, he made his way to the far corner of the room to take a look at the scrolls. The scrolls were old, really old, as if no one's touched them for years, with spider webs all over them. The room itself hadn't been tread upon in years. So it shouldn't come as a surprise. But the fact that the chakra readings in these scrolls were quite strong even after all of these years really surprised the hidden leaf ninja. Picking up one of the scrolls from the ground, he began examining the writings. Naturally after all of these years, the scroll wasn't in its best shape, the writings were ink was fading, the parchment was worn out and the some places of the scroll were torn up. But it came as no surprise when he found that the writings in this scroll were also all in blood. He couldn't understand the language written in them but he was positive that this scroll had something to do with the strange chakra spike in the recent days. So he picked up some of the scrolls and safely sealed them inside a storage sealing scroll and decided to report back to the leaf.

As he made his way out of the ruins, he couldn't help but ruminate on the recent strange and unnatural phenomena occurring in the places adjacent to this forest. The recent discovery that he made would most definitely shed some new light on the matter. But somehow his guts told him, that thing is going to be big, bigger than he could imagine.

As he made he walked out of the ruins and entered the forest, he heard a strange whizzing sound and before he could come back to reality from his train of thoughts, hundreds of shuriken came flying out of nowhere. In a situation like this, any ordinary shinobi would've been impaled by the shower of shurikens and their bodies would've been ripped to shred. But it was no ordinary shinobi, it was Sasuke Uchiha. Using amenotejikara he evaded them at the last possible moment. Now that he was apprehensive of his surroundings, he saw where the shurikens came from. Ninjas with the same mystic chakra. They carefully concealed themselves in the dark forest. Their chakra masking abilities were also top class. But with his rinnegan he could clearly see each and every of them. The chakra levels of the shinobis suggested that they were all equally strong, jounin level, but the chakra level of one was greater than the rest. Four, eight, ten, twelve, fourteen, he did a quick head count. Total fourteen of them and they didn't seem very friendly.. Slowly they came out from the shadows of the trees. Fourteen ninjas clad in black robes with an inverted triangle on their back circled Sasuke. One of them spoke, "Those ominous red orbs, it has been a long time since i saw an Uchiha. Yet your chakra is quite different from the ones I have seen earlier. The only time i have sensed chakra as potent as yours was during the great war seven years ago. This explains why you had the courage to enter this forest. Too bad, now we have to kill you."


End file.
